


Daylight

by fireflyslove



Series: A Chain of Light (Worf/Jadzia DS9) [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Handwavery, Jadzia Dax Lives, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2020-11-08 19:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20840969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireflyslove/pseuds/fireflyslove
Summary: Jadzia's not dead, Ezri's committing crimes, and Worf doesn't have to be sad!Or: I write DS9 fic with My Tropes ('heeeey I'm not dead', namely)





	1. Ezri

**Author's Note:**

> Um. So apparently this is a thing I write now. 
> 
> It's been a longass time since I've actually seen DS9, but this is set early season 7, just after Ezri comes to DS9. 
> 
> Title from Taylor Swift song.

“It’s me… Dax.”

Only… it wasn’t. 

Let’s back up a bit. 

The story you know, Jadzia Dax was fatally injured by Gul Dukat, Dr. Bashir was able to save the Dax symbiont but not Jadzia, and a few weeks later, Ezri Tigan became Ezri Dax. Everyone thinks that’s what happened, but it’s not… not exactly. 

Ezri’s return to the station wasn’t everything she’d hoped it would be. The symbiont inside her kept pushing memories of these places and people, but it’s like she was seeing it through a fog. She had two separate memories of last year, hers and Jadzia’s, and Jadzia’s lay over this place like a thin layer of dust. 

She was both avoiding and trying to talk to Worf for the better part of two days but he wouldn’t have anything to do with her. She understood, at least she thought she did, but Worf was a man of deep passions, and Ezri suspected that he’d destroyed more than one piece of furniture in the last three months. 

She was putting the finishing touches on her quarters when the doorbell chimed. “Come in!” she called, turning to see who it was. 

Julian stood in the doorway, holding a bottle. “Ah, hello,” he said. “I brought you a housewarming gift.”

She took the bottle. It’s a good vintage. 

It’s also Jadzia’s favorite. 

“Thanks,” she said, trying not to sound a little strangled. 

“Oh damn,” he said. “I did it wrong, didn’t I?”

“No, no, it’s … nice,” she said. Ezri Tigan hated wine. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I keep trying to, well, never mind. Can I try this again?” 

“Sure,” she said. 

He snatched the bottle of wine from her hands and absconded. The doors closed after him, and Ezri was confused, but shrugged and went back to hanging pictures. 

Fifteen minutes later the door chimed again, and she called for the person to enter. It was Julian again, this time with a different bottle. He offered it to her, a bottle of Risa’s finest mead. 

“How’d you know I like mead?” she asked suspiciously. 

“Trade secrets,” he said. 

-

Ezri had given up stalking Worf until she ran into him chest-to-chest in the corridor one afternoon. It was startling to be this much shorter than him, and all the words she had been rehearsing for the last six weeks stuck in her chest as he glowered down at her. 

“Worf,” she said. 

“Ensign,” he said, brushing past her.

“Ensign? That's all you have to say to me?”

“What more is there to say?” 

“I was your  _ wife _ ,” she said, the word almost choking her.

“You are not Jadzia. Jadzia died and went to Sto-vo-kor. I do not know you. Nor do I wish to know you.”

He left, and she felt a gut-drop feeling of finality. 

-

In the middle of the night, she was awoken by a transmission. 

“Ezri Ti--Dax,” she said, scrambling for her combadge.

A faint hissing came over the line, and a very faint female voice said, “I need help.”

She felt like she should recognize the voice, but she couldn’t quite place it. “Where are you?” Ezri asked.

The voice gave her a set of coordinates, and then “Come alone.”

The transmission cut out, and Ezri is left staring at a glowing screen, very confused. She considered waking Benjamin up and asking him, but something stopped her. It surprised her to realized it’s the symbiont’s influence. She didn’t often get independent thought from them, it’s usually just feelings and the memories of the previous hosts. 

She stopped, focusing on the symbiont, trying to parse their message. 

_ Go alone _ , they said, pressing the words firmly into her mind. 

-

It was easier than Ezri would like to commandeer a small ship, she’d have to talk to Odo about security protocols when she got back. 

If he or Benjamin didn’t throw her in the brig, that was. 

The coordinates were several lightyears out from the station into the Badlands, and Ezri’s not the best pilot. It took all of her concentration to navigate the treacherous space. 

Three days later, she arrived at the coordinates, a small asteroid drifting in a pocket of calm space. As she put the ship into orbit around the asteroid, a transmission pings on her conn.

“Hello?” she asked tentatively. 

“Scan the asteroid for lifeforms,” the voice, still faint and staticky, said. 

Ezri does so, and finds two, one deep inside the asteroid’s core and one on the surface. “I’ve got two lifeforms,” she replied. 

“I’m the one on the surface,” the voice said. “Can you transport me out of here?”

Ezri attempted to lock the ship’s transporter onto the lifeform on the surface, but can’t get a solid reading. “There’s too much interference,” she said. 

The woman on the comm cursed. “I’m going to have to get away from this asteroid. Something  _ really _ stupid,” she said. 

“How are you going to do that?” Ezri asked. 

“Does your ship have a grapple?” 

-

Ezri wasn’t really sure this is a good idea. It seems harebrained, and in her lifetimes, she’s had a  _ lot _ of harebrained ideas. But she went along with it anyway. The ship’s grapple (why does it even HAVE a grapple?) was targeted to where the woman claims she’s going to be, and Ezri had a hair trigger finger on the tractor beam. 

She snapped the helmet down over her face, clipped her safety line to the bulkhead, and told the computer to open the cargo bay doors. The warning sirens blared, and every bit of atmosphere that isn’t behind the forcefield is sucked out into space. The grapple deployed, and Ezri can’t see where it’s going once it goes beyond the hull of the ship, but she can see on the display that it’s headed for its target. The line snapped taut as the grapple engaged, and Ezri slammed her hand down on the tractor beam. 

Luckily for them, Ezri had commandeered a ship that some dignitary used for hunting large spaceborne prey, and it was ideally suited for this type of thing. The tractor beam slowed the woman’s approach to the ship, but it wasn’t meant to bring its quarry in alive, and she was coming in far faster than Ezri had expected. When her form rounded the corner, Ezri gave the computer a desperate command to spool the line out. The woman flew back, but the line didn’t snap taut, likely saving her a broken back. The grapple line and the tractor beam fight each other for a moment before the tractor beam wins again, and the woman came flying into the cargo bay, albeit at a much more sedate speed. As it was, she slammed into the wall next to Ezri. The cargo bay doors snapped closed as the grapple line finished reeling in. 

Then the entire ship was rocked by something hitting the side. 

“Computer, what was that?” she asked.

“A phaser blast from the nearby asteroid,” the computer’s sedate voice responded. 

“Get us out of here!” Ezri shouted. “Maximum warp.”

“That course of action is not advised,” the computer replied. 

Ezri cursed, a Klingon word she had never before said in her (this?) life. The Badlands made for treacherous going. “Well then get us out of here as fast as you can!” she said. The life support was filling the cargo bay with atmosphere, and as soon as the display on her space suit indicated it was safe, she pressed the button to bring the forcefield down. She unclipped herself from the bulkhead and stumbled her way to the cockpit as the ship rocked with another phaser blast. 

Ezri’s steering was even worse under fire, and the computer shouting calm warnings at her about the state of the ship’s shields wasn’t helping any. She found a path through the Badlands’ dangers, and sent the ship through it as quickly as she could. The computer’s voice informed her that there was a ship following them from the asteroid. 

“Lovely,” she muttered under her breath, and tried to coax a little more speed out of the ship. If only she could channel one of her past lives. Surely one of the Daxes had been a good pilot?

“Here, let me.” A hand clamped down on her shoulder, and Ezri nearly jumped out of her skin. The woman she had rescued had apparently made it to the cockpit from the cargo bay. 

Ezri still wasn’t sure why she had even come all this way on the word of a voice and a feeling from her symbiont, but at this point it was too late to think about that. So she stood up and stepped away from the seat, allowing the woman to take her place. Ezri didn’t get a good look at her face, but it was clear immediately that the woman was a better pilot than Ezri. 

She took the ship on a slalom-like path through the Badlands, in the general direction that Ezri had come from, but not following the same path. Instead she was taking far more risks, and within fifteen minutes had managed to lose their pursuer. 

Ezri breathed a sigh of relief as they cleared a cluster of particularly bad phenomena, and sank down into the chair just behind the cockpit. They said nothing to each other as the woman navigated the Badlands, all of her concentration on not flying into certain death. Ezri had taken a slightly longer path around a patch of densely clustered storms, but this pilot took them back directly through it. 

“It’s gonna get bumpy,” she warned Ezri. Ezri pressed the button on the seat to deploy the safety belt and strapped herself in. 

The next half hour was one of the most jarring of Ezri’s life, but when they came out the other side, they shot out into clear space.

“It’s still two days to DS9 even at maximum warp,” the pilot said, “But I feel like we might have something to talk about to fill that time.”

“Who  _ are _ you?” Ezri blurted out. 

The woman startled, her shoulders jerking. “You don’t know?” 

“No, or else I wouldn’t’ve asked!” Ezri said. 

The woman swiveled her chair around and Ezri felt her heart stutter as shock shot through her system.

A face she had seen every day in the mirror looked back at her. It was not her face, not Ezri’s, but it was  _ Dax’s.  _

“Jadzia Dax,” Jadzia said, offering a hand. 

“But you died,” Ezri said, too stunned to take it. “I  _ remember _ dying.”

“So I thought,” Jadzia said. “Wait, you  _ remember? _ ”

“How… how are you alive?” Ezri asked. 

“I’m not entirely certain myself,” Jadzia said. “I remember Dukat, and then pain, and then Julian shouting something about ‘losing me’ and then there was just… darkness. Until I woke up on a different table in a different place. But I’ve never met you in my life… how can you remember me dying?”

“No, no,” Ezri said. “I don’t just remember  _ you _ dying, I remember dying  _ as _ you.”

“Who are you?” Jadzia asked. 

“Ezri… Dax,” Ezri said. 

“You can’t be Dax,” Jadzia said flatly. 

“I’m sorry?” Ezri said. “After you… died… the Dax symbiont was on their way to Trill when they went into distress. I was the only available Trill, and so… I became Ezri Dax.”

“That’s not possible. Dax… Dax is still within  _ me _ ,” Jadzia said, putting a hand over her torso.

They stared at each other for a long moment, and a sense of dread filled Ezri. It wasn’t her own, but instead it came from the symbiont. 

“What.” Ezri said.

“I… don’t know,” Jadzia said. 

“Why did you contact  _ me _ ?” Ezri asked. 

“I put out a general distress call to any Trill,” Jadzia said. “You must have been the closest.”

“Why only Trill?”

“It’s a long story,” Jadzia said. “And I don’t know all the parts. But the being who you just rescued me from is… I’m not sure exactly what he is, but he claims he’s some sort of god.” She started to say something else, but wavered in the seat, and Ezri was on her feet to catch Jadzia before she hit the floor. 

Ezri only noticed then that Jadzia was thin, the bones of her face very prominent, and there was a thin trickle of dried blood running down her face. She manhandled Jadzia into the ship’s bunk, no mean feat considering the woman’s height advantage on her and the narrowness of the door, and reached for a tricorder. It indicated nothing wrong beyond dehydration and mild malnutrition, but then, Ezri was not a medical doctor. 

She snapped the tricorder closed, and sat back on the chair, her hands in her hair. 

“You are being hailed,” the computer said, breaking into Ezri’s thoughts. 

“On screen,” Ezri said.

The small screen on the conn sprang to life with a very angry Captain Sisko looking at her. 

“Ensign,” he said. “I hope you have a  _ damn _ good explanation for this. Drop out of warp.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but he cut the transmission before she could say anything. She hit a few buttons on the conn, and the ship dropped to sublight speed. Seconds later, the Defiant popped out of warp alongside. 

Sisko’s face came back on her display, and she could see the turmoil on his face. “Drop your shields. I’m coming over.”

Ezri didn’t even bother arguing, just deactivated her shields. Minutes later, she heard the sound of a transporter beam, and she took a steadying breath as she turned around to face Sisko. 

“Dax,” he said in a quiet, but firm, voice. “Why? What could possibly have made you steal a ship? Go AWOL?”

“Benjamin,” she started. 

“Don’t get familiar with me,” he snapped. “Do you know how much trouble you’re in?”

“I have an inkling,” she said. “But there’s something you should know first.” 

“I’m listening,” Sisko said. 

Ezri stood, and walked around Sisko to the bunkroom door. She turned to face him, hand behind her back, and palmed the door control. He looked past her, and she watched his expression turn from anger to shock before he rushed into the room.

“Jadzia?” he said. “Ezri, what’s going on?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Only that on the night I left, I received a transmission from someone saying they needed help and something, I guess my symbiont?, compelled me to go. The transmission said I had to go alone.”

“We’ll be discussing this later,” Sisko said. “But she needs medical help, and the sooner the better. We’re going to transport back to the Defiant, and I’ll have someone bring this ship back.” He tapped his combadge, “Sisko to Defiant, three to beam over.”

“Three, sir?” the Defiant’s transporter officer replied.

“Three,” Sisko confirmed. He slid arms under Jadzia’s knees and shoulders and picked her up. “Energize.”

The familiar sensation of transport overcame Ezri, and then she was on the Defiant. Familiar faces glared at her for a long moment, before they looked past her and saw Sisko. Julian was the first to overcome his shock. Ezri wasn’t sure why he would come on a mission to apprehend her, but she was glad to see him in that moment. 

“Bring her to sickbay,” he said brusquely. 

Sisko brushed past Ezri and followed the doctor to Sickbay. With no other orders, Ezri wandered off toward the Defiant’s bunk room. She sat down on the bunk, and, without intending to, fell asleep.

-

She was awoken by a hand on her shoulder. She came awake all at once, and sat up so quickly that she smacked her head on the bunk’s roof. Sisko was squatting by the side of the bunk.

“We’re about 3 hours from the station,” he said. “I wanted to let you know that Jadzia is going to be fine. We’re not sure how she’s still alive, and I’m hoping you could shed some light…?”

“All she told me was that some god-like being was holding her captive,” Ezri said. “But Benjamin, she also said she still had Dax?”

Sisko’s eyebrows furrowed. “Dr. Bashir didn’t mention, but… Sisko to Bashir.”

“Bashir here,” came the reply. 

“Doctor, can you do a scan to see if the Dax symbiont is inside Jadzia?” Sisko asked. 

“Sir,” Bashir said, sounding pained. “I know it’s a miracle to have Jadzia back, but I removed Dax from her.”

“Just humor me, then,” Sisko said. 

“Give me a moment,” Julian replied. A few minutes later, “I don’t know how, but yes, they are still within Jadzia. And healthier than she is at the moment. I have several questions, sir, if--”

“Thank you, doctor,” Sisko said, cutting Bashir off. “I’m sure we all do, but we can look into that later.” He steepled his fingers. “I’m going to be level with you, Ezri. I didn’t file this with Starfleet.”

“Me stealing a ship?” Ezri asked.

“Yes,” Sisko said. “I’ve known Dax for a long time and none of you would ever do something like this without a very good reason, so I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. As it turns out, that’s a good thing.”

“I’m not sure I’m Dax,” Ezri said. “This symbiont… it has all of Dax’s memories, but they seem fuzzy.”

“Well, that’s a question for Jadzia when she wakes up. Until then, have something to eat,” Sisko said. “We’ll be home soon enough.”

-

They docked at the Defiant’s usual port, and Ezri was the first through the airlock. She flushed under the weight of all the glares turned her way, and shrank into her shoulders just a bit as she walked through the Promenade. Worst though, was Worf’s. She could practically feel the physical presence of the fire from his eyes. 

He had to know, though, had to go to Jadzia. 

“Worf,” she started. 

“No,” he said. “I have no interest in talking to you.”

“It’s not me,” she said. “Just go to sickbay.”

“Fine,” he grunted. 

She followed him at a discreet distance, standing just inside the door as he entered the trauma bay. His back stiffened when he saw Jadzia’s prone form, and he whirled on Ezri. 

“ _ What did you do? _ ” he roared. “Desecrate her grave? Desecrate your own grave?”

“Worf,” Bashir tried to cut in, but Worf was incandescent, and he advanced on Ezri. She stumbled back, reaching for a weapon she didn’t have. 

“Worf, please,” Ezri said, holding up placating hands. 

Then, a quiet, unsteady voice. “Worf, stop.” 

Worf whirled around and looked at his wife’s wide blue eyes. A keening note escaped his chest, and he rushed to her bedside, falling to his knees. 

Bashir came up to Ezri, put a hand on her shoulder. 

“Let’s leave them for a moment,” he said. 

Ezri started to argue, but then… she wasn’t a part of that. If she was right, she had  _ never _ been part of that, had never been Jadzia, even if she could, somehow, remember it. And so she left them, and wandered off into her own life. Not as Ezri Dax, nor Ezri Tigan, but as someone else, someone she was going to have to figure out. And hopefully rather quickly. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point I'm making shit up left and right, especially with regards to Symbiont Science.

“Genetically speaking,” Julian said, consulting a padd, “Ezri’s symbiont is identical to Dax.”

“That’s not possible,” Jadzia said. 

Ezri, Jadzia, and Julian were sitting in Julian’s office, two weeks after Ezri and Jadzia’s return to the station. Jadzia was finally recovered enough to participate in the investigation into the mysterious case of the two Daxes. 

“What do you mean?” Julian said. 

“All symbionts are genetically unique. Twins and more don’t exist among them,” Jadzia said. “It goes against everything we know about the symbionts for that to happen.”

“It’s not just that they’re Dax’s twin, they think they  _ are _ Dax, or at least, they have Dax’s memories,” Ezri said. “They tell me that before we found you, Jadzia, that everything was as clear as a bell, and that squares with what I remember. I remember things from your childhood, from Emony’s life, from Tobin’s, but they’re all fuzzy now.”

Jadzia gave her an odd look. “You communicate with your symbiont?” she asked. 

“Yes?” Ezri said, confused by the question. 

“That’s… also not possible,” Jadzia said. “Julian are you  _ sure _ Ezri’s symbiont is genetically identical to Dax?”

“I’ll take a look again, but I’ve spent hours staring at this data,” Julian said.

“Why isn’t it possible?” Ezri asked. 

“You say you remember Dax’s past lives. Think, did any of us ever receive thoughts from the symbiont?” Jadzia asked. When Ezri shook her head, Jadzia continued, “I am not Jadzia and not Dax. We are the same being, our thoughts are the  _ same thoughts _ . It’s impossible to distinguish them.”

“That’s true,” Julian said. “Ezri, may I?” 

“Scan us? Me?” Ezri asked. “Please, I’d like some answers.”

Julian ushered her to a biobed, and took several scans. They returned to his office, and he brought the scan results up on the monitor. 

“This,” he said, gesturing to the first of three screens, “is the scan of your and your symbiont’s brain activity from your intake physical.” The two wave patterns were identical. Gesturing to the second, “This is Jadzia and Dax’s from yesterday morning.” also identical. The third, however, showed two different patterns. “They’re similar, but there’s enough difference that I would say these two scans are from different people.” 

“That’s… very strange,” Ezri said.

“Indeed,” Julian said. “I’d like to ask the two of you to perform an exercise, if you will?” They both nodded, and he continued, “Close your eyes. Ezri, I’d like you to think back to the last time that you remember being Jadzia. And, if you can, ask your symbiont if they remember anything from the same time. Jadzia, can you remember what happened after you, ah, ‘died’? Before you woke up on the asteroid?”

Ezri furrowed her brows, plumbing hers and her symbiont’s ( _ she really needed to ask them what they wanted to be called _ ) memory. “I… they… they remember seeing Dukat in the temple, then it’s disjointed flashes. The cold sensation of being removed, and then… there’s a…. Ripping sensation?” Her eyes shot open. “I never remembered that before. It’s burning pain, more than being separated from a host, like their very soul is being cloven. And then it’s gone, and they’re in a stasis tank en route to Trill, when things go wrong, and they have to find a host. And then they, I wake up.”

Jadzia’s face was similarly creased with concentration, “I remember being taken out of this body, but then a .., ripping, burning… yes, like my soul is being split. And then I wake up in the facility.” 

“Dax split?” Ezri asked. 

“I don’t know how,” Julian said. “It sounds like it happened some time between me removing them from Jadzia, and being put on the transport back to Trill.”

“What happened to me, to this body, after you took them out?” Jadzia asked. 

“We… had a funeral and then you were put in a torpedo casing and shot out into space,” Julian said. “Dax went directly onto the transport. They were never left alone.”

“Someone found me, revived me, and put Dax back in,” Jadzia said. “I assume it was the same person who held me captive.”

“But then why did they divide Dax?” Ezri asked. 

“To stop people from looking for them. If you showed up and had all of Dax’s memories, there would be no one looking for Dax. But whatever they did, they seem to have botched it,” Jadzia said. 

“Well I’ll be damned,” Julian said, plopping a padd down in front of Ezri. She couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but apparently Jadzia could, on a copy of the same padd. 

“Shit,” Jadzia said. 

“What?” Ezri demanded.

“Your symbiont is not  _ quite _ identical to Dax.” Jadzia said. “They are very close, but not quite a clone. I would venture to guess the ripping sensation we remember is whoever did this cutting a piece of Dax off to grow a new Dax. I don’t know how all of Dax’s memories moved into your symbiont—”

_ I am Neve _ , a thought threaded its way into Ezri’s mind. The symbiont.

“Neve,” Ezri interrupted. 

“Huh?” Jadzia said.

“They say they want to be called Neve,” Ezri said. 

Jadzia dipped her head in acknowledgement. “How all of Dax’s memories moved into Neve, but it seems that they mutated just a tiny bit.”

“I am by no means an expert on Trill symbionts,” Julian said. “But I would venture a guess that the reason you and your… Neve are finding yourself joined but disparate beings is because Neve is so young. Symbionts are typically much older when they are joined, right?”

“They are usually over a century old,” Jadzia confirmed. “Dax was a hundred and fifty.”

“So Neve was no more than three weeks old when they were joined with you, and hadn’t fully formed yet,” Julian continued. “They fused with you, but because they weren’t developed fully, something went awry.”

Ezri felt Neve sending her another thought, and concentrated on it.  _ Dax woke me up.  _

“They say Dax woke them up?” Ezri said. 

“The symbionts are not telepathic,” Jadzia said. “But whoever it was that captured me had some sort of telepathy. Maybe something happened when I sent out a distress signal?”

“It was at that time, yes,” Ezri said. “Before that we were one being, as you said.”

“I would very much like to meet whoever did this and ask them a great deal,” Julian said.

“As would I,” Ezri said. 

-

Despite their best efforts over the next weeks, however, all trace of whoever had taken Jadzia and sundered Dax was gone. The asteroid itself was no more than space dust, remnants of the photon torpedoes that had been used to destroy it lingered in the plasma storms of the Badlands. 

Sisko finally had to declare the case cold after a month, to focus on the war, though it was not far from any of their minds. Ezri and Jadzia would get their answers, but first the problem of the Dominion had to be taken care of. 

Ezri’s service record was amended to enter her as ‘Ezri Neve’. 

The Trill Symbiosis committee demanded her immediate recall to Trill to, in Jadzia’s interpretation of the message they had sent, “Experiment on her to figure out what the fuck she was”.

Ezri ignored them, at least for now. 

She took Jadzia’s freely offered advice on adjusting to life as a joined Trill, but as Jadzia would readily admit, it wasn’t all applicable to her unique situation. 

Julian had determined that there was no way to separate Ezri and Neve and have Neve survive. Ezri was less and less inclined by the day to want that to happen. Neve was becoming quite an opinionated individual, and though they and Ezri operated as a single being, Ezri still was sometimes startled by the presence of their thoughts in her brain. 

The Dominion War raged on for almost a year, but as it drew to a close, the specter of the mysterious kidnapper reared its ugly head, and Ezri found herself in the heart of a mystery. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A set up for a squeakual? (yes)
> 
> Do I have any idea what's happening? (no)
> 
> Is Ezri in for a Wild Ride? (yes)

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found anywhere a symbiont divides @fireflyslove.


End file.
